Monday, October 19, 2009

4 Ways an iPhone Can Make Your Life Easier

by: Greg Leighton

Once you get past all the hype, the Apple iPhone really is a remarkable piece of modern technology. Maybe you've resisted getting one because it seems to be a fad, or you're under the impression that most people who have an iPhone only bought it to be trendy or look cool. While that may be the case for some people, other iPhone owners will tell you that having the device contributes a lot more to their productivity than a regular cell phone [http://goingcellular.com/]. Aside from being able to send and receive e-mail, stay in touch with clients, and network, an iPhone can actually make your life a little easier.

Save Money - Newspaper coupons have been around for ages. Some people spend hours clipping and organizing them, and then planning their grocery shopping around them to get the best deals. Then came online coupons, which made things a little easier.

Now there are coupons for your cell phone. In particular, there are a couple of iPhone apps that are intended to help you find local deals not just at the grocery store, but at department stores, and home improvement warehouses. One of the most popular coupon apps is Cellfire [http://www.cellfire.com/], but also give Yowza!! a try.

Get Where You're Going - How many times have you traveled to a new city, either for work or pleasure, and spent much of your time there finding your way around? Just locating a place to eat can be time consuming and stressful when your time is limited, and you're hungry. And walking around a city with your nose in a map just screams tourist and makes you a target for thieves. Enter the iPhone, and apps like Lonely Planet Travel Guides.

Lonely Planet [http://www.lonelyplanet.com/] is well known for its thorough and informative travel books. Now they've taken their travel experience and knowledge, and put it into an iPhone app. Find things to do and see, and great places to eat with just a few taps on the touchscreen. This app currently includes information for 34 cities, with more additions planned.

Find a Movie and Buy Tickets - Remember when, in order to find out what movies were playing and at what times, you had to buy a newspaper? Then Moviefone came along, which you could call and a recording would tell you what was playing at your local theater, and at what time. It was a little more convenient, but still cumbersome, having to wait for the recorded, mechanical voice to get through all the listings you were interested in.

Now, all you have to do is power up your iPhone, and download the Flixster app. It lists theaters that are close to your location, and you can select the ones you frequent as favorites so they're always at the top of the list. Then you can see what movies are playing at the theater you select, and at what time. In fact, you can get movie listings and showtimes up to a week in advance. You can also get information about the movies, see and leave reviews, and watch trailers.

The best part is, you can do all this when you spontaneously decide to go see a movie while you're at the mall, and you don't have to buy a newspaper or listen to a robot voice to decide what to see. Even better, download the Fandango app [http://www.fandango.com/], and you can buy tickets right from your phone and not have to stand in line at the box office.

Pay Your Wireless Bill - It happens to everyone. You go on vacation, or you're visiting family without access to a computer, and your cell phone bill is due. If you don't pay it promptly, your service will be interrupted, causing even more of an inconvenience. What to do?

Well, you could call your wireless provider and pay over the phone, sure. Or, if you have an iPhone, which means you have service with AT&T [http://goingcellular.com/reviews/att.html], you can use the myWireless app to pay your bill directly from your phone. No need to call, wait on hold, and have a discussion with anyone. With this app, you can pay your bill in less than a minute, and not have to worry about being without service because of a forgotten payment.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Feel Good Naked - Natural Beauty Secrets

by: Elaine Woosey


How confident are you when it comes to being naked? Sadly, a lot of women agonise about their bodies and revealing all can be a traumatic experience. If you are looking for tips, tricks and beauty secrets to help you make the most of your natural beauty and feel good naked, you've come to the right place.

Number one of all the beauty secrets is this, if you want to feel good naked you must be happy in your own skin.

To help you achieve this, look after your skin to bring out its natural beauty. Exfoliate regularly to remove dead skin cells and give your circulation a boost, this will encourage new skin cells at the same time. Encouraging new skin cells will give your skin a younger, fresher look.

Always moisturise using a good moisturiser and pay special attention to dry areas such as elbows, knees and feet. Take your time and massage the moisturiser right into your skin. Massaging not only helps your circulation it also helps to smooth out bumps and wrinkles and will enhance your natural beauty. Olive oil, an old-fashioned beauty secret, will give your skin a luxurious look as well as making it soft and supple to touch. As the surface of your skin improves and you get to know your body better you will begin to feel good naked.

Remove unsightly hairs from your legs, under your arms and tidy up your bikini line, or go the whole hog and go for a Brazilian wax.

You probably already know that eating a balanced diet to maintain healthy skin from the inside will benefit your natural beauty. Oily fish and vegetables will do wonders for your nails, hair and teeth as well as providing fish oils and vitamins for your skin and is a beauty secret worth knowing.

Your hair is your crowning glory especially if you want to feel good naked, have it trimmed regularly and keep it clean, well conditioned and healthy.

A quick fix beauty secret to feel good naked is to decide which your best asset is and show it off to the best advantage. Stand naked in front of a tall mirror and take a good, long look at yourself.

Standing straight on is not always the best pose, experiment by turning slowly and watching how your contours change. Standing side on can be a lot more flattering and compliment your natural beauty. Stand up straight and lift your sternum (breastbone) arch your back slightly so that your bottom sticks out a little bit but not too much.

You can make yourself look slimmer by stretching your body into a bow shape and being careful not to stoop or scrunch yourself up. Or stand slightly side on to the mirror placing one leg in front of the other; this will give you a very sexy shapely outline indeed.

Or try lying on your stomach propped up by your elbows, this accentuates the curve of your back and the shape of your breasts and at the same time minimises your stomach.

The idea behind the above beauty secrets is to create an illusion, flatter your natural beauty and help you to feel good naked.

A good tip is to spend as much time as you can actually being naked, this will get you used to seeing yourself naked and the more you see yourself naked, the more being naked will feel natural to you.

Remember to stand up straight and stretch your body to make yourself look slimmer. It also helps if you master the art of walking by placing one foot in front of the other, as though you are walking a tight rope, and swing your legs from the hips. I've found this looks extremely elegant and it will do wonders for your confidence.

Another good beauty secret is to go for soft lighting, such as candles, tea lights or softly coloured light bulbs if you haven't got a dimmer switch, and make sure the lighting is behind you. This not only has a slimming effect - it will also help to soften your outline and give you a sexy glow.

A soft glow rather than harsh lighting will give your skin an even tone and minimise the appearance of any blemishes.

One of the best beauty secrets I know is taking regular exercise to help keep your body toned and supple, a thirty-minute walk three times a week will pay many benefits. Walk at a speed that gets your heart rate up, this will oxygenate your blood and improve your skin, as well as your muscles and heart. Don't walk so fast that you can't have a conversation at the same time.

A toned and balanced body is extremely beautiful and will make you look and feel good naked, and you don’t need an hourglass figure to achieve this. Add quality to your movements with muscles that are long and toned and you will appear more balanced and beautiful.

Finally, the best way to feel good naked is to have confidence in yourself. If you don't feel it, fake it until you do. Get to know your own body and accept yourself for who you are and how you look.

We are all individuals and there are no set rules for everyone. Watch other women and notice how they move, what looks good and what doesn't. You can learn a lot by watching others.

Someone who is happy in her own skin and behaves in a confident manner is extremely attractive and sexy, regardless of her body shape.

How you feel about yourself is what really counts because this will show in your eyes and natural beauty will radiate from you.

Relax and enjoy yourself - love the way you look - if you do then others will too.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

How To Take Pictures In The Dark

Introduction

Have you ever taken a picture of a cherished moment only later to discover it did not develop well because of the lighting? This will never happen again.

Advancements in sensor technology are transforming the quality of digital cameras. Sensors will enable the camera to be two to four times as sensitive to light compared to what is currently available. Photographers will produce higher quality pictures in low lighting situations.

The current status

Flashes are currently used to add more light to a scene, but they may not always be effective or appropriate. For instance, photos are prohibited in some indoor venues because the flash may take away from the participants of the event. Due to the progression of light sensors, taking a picture indoors will produce better results and may promote the usage of cameras in more venues.

Out with the old

The new technology builds upon old technology, which works as follows: Red, green, and blue pixels work in conjunction with an image sensor to collect more light to produce a quality picture. Half of pixels gather green light, while the remaining pixels collect red and blue light. The inner software then reconstructs a full-color signal for each pixel.

In with the new

The sensor innovation introduces a fourth pixel. It is sensitive to all colors, so all wavelengths of light go through and are detected by the pixel. The pixels are highly sensitive because they do not filter out any light. The panchromatic pixels are used to harness the amount of light and the color pixels are used to procure the final image.

Conclusion

This sensor technology will revolutionize how we take pictures. It enhances the quality of the picture and grants more opportunities to take great pictures at times when it has previously been less than optimal to do so.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

How To Reach And Stay At The Top Of The First Page Of The Search Engines

Everybody is familiar with search engines such as Google & Yahoo. Search Engines have radically changed the Internet. Radically! Over 50% of all consumer purchases of all business purchases are now pursued by searches. That’s what was said months ago and it is obviously going higher. So the majority of people Worldwide who now are on computers, the first place they go to is a Search Engine to find information, for what they are looking for.

The Search Engine technology is now based and what Search Engine is trying to do as they are trying to put out in front of their searchers, the most current relative information possible. Google knows that what it can give you is exactly what you want to see and it’s relative to the current & it’s timely. And you are going to come back to Google over, over and over again.

Why all those Bloggers out there for years have been making a lot of money and how they are promoting for free, and how they getting free publicity and generating MASS traffic to their sites? Because Bloggers took advantage of what Google had determined was the secret to the Internet right now. A WEB SITE THAT CHANGES A LOT GETS MORE RATING WITH A SEARCH ENGINE. So if your website is changing a lot and adjusting a lot and is current, Google will push you up on the rating. That means you are getting closer, closer and closer to the first page. And this is extremely important, particularly if you know how to what is called “games the system.

What those Bloggers do – they “game the system”. And here is how they game the system: They went out and found the websites that have the absolute most change going on in a web site every single day, every single hour, every single minute, and every single second. They are powerful websites that have constant change, constant upgrading going on every minute of every day. Theses website are called “Article Hubs”. These web sites grow out of the whole change in how Search Engines work because people realized that the more websites change, the more powerful website are in searches, they realized there better be constant change. This is particularly true in Media sites & this is particularly true with Bloggers, because they began to figure out that if they have more constant change on their sites every day their Bloggs will lift on the searches. And I am going to show you one of those hugs sites. It is an extremely powerful site, 5000-7000 writers, authors, reporters & Bloggers place their articles in this site every day.

Do you understand that that site is not just visited by tens of thousands of writers and author’s who have submitted articles everyday? Do you realize this site is visited by over a million unique visitors every single day? So these sites, these Article Hubs are incredibly potent. And when you put one article in one of these sites, guess what you start to do? You start to dominate keywords. And if you can get on the first page of any major keyword you have hit a Gold Mine! One article! One keyword! Traffic, traffic, traffic! There is one example “Religion and online marketing”, this article was written two years ago and guess where they are.

Do you know when you put a keyword in worldwide there are over 35 millions places on the web that have this constant in here with Religion and Online Marketing? And this article is still having a first result, first page. That was written TWO YEARS AGO! He has been getting traffic every single day for almost 800 days for this article. One Article! One keyword! Traffic, Traffic, Traffic! And if you go page after page, after page you are going to see that article over and over and over … That Company continues to get traffic to this very day. That’s the power of Article Hubs.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Nintendo Wii Brings The Gym To You With Wii Fit

Nintendo has announced a new fitness game Wii Fit which is a full on exercise product set to give you more of a workout than Wii Sports, while still retaining all the fun of gaming. Wii Fit will help to keep you physically fit via a dedicated peripheral, a wireless balance board which comes with the game. There are over 40 different activities, including hula hooping, ski jumping and heading soccer balls.

The hula hooping consists of, as you’d expect, gyrating your hips with a virtual hoop onscreen and then as the game progresses, characters will throw more hoops for you to catch and rotate as many times as you can until the time runs out.

The skiing game gives you two chances to make the longest jump you can whilst keeping your balance when landing. Players can increase speed by leaning forward, the more you lean the faster you’ll go, and upon reaching the jump, you stand up straight ensuring your weight is evenly balanced for a good landing.

For the football game, you will need to balance on the board moving from side to side whilst balls are fired at you to hit back on to the field and avoiding other objects that are thrown at you at the same time.

Training falls into 4 categories: Aerobics, muscle conditioning, yoga and balance games. Players can assign their height to a profile to measure body mass index and Wii fitness age as well as monitor progress and record performance statistics.

The calorie busting fun could appeal to couch potato kids as well a non gamers, perhaps using the Nintendo Wii as a slimming tool which would be a move into the lifestyle category rather than gaming, covering the market from another angle.

Nintendo hasn't given a release date yet for Wii Fit, although its thought to hit the highstreet in early 2008.

Friday, July 20, 2007

What You Need to Know about iPod Movies

iPod devices that are equipped with video players must have the movies from their original format converted to one that can be read and played by the iPod movie player system. This means that the movie can either be downloaded from an iPod-friendly site such as the Apple iPod Store or another website dedicated to iPod music and movies, or the user must purchase the appropriate conversion software. Most of the iPod movie conversion systems can convert most types of movie files such as AVI, MPEG, WMV, MOV, MP4, RM, RMVB, H.264, VOB or DivX formats into the MPEG-4 video format that the iPod uses.

In addition to just converting the format, the system must also match the resolution of the iPod movie player. The typical resolution for the iPod display screen is 640 by 480 for optimum viewing and clarity of picture. Without the appropriate software conversion, the picture would be highly distorted. Other resolutions are possible and the software application will usually optimize the file for viewing, selecting the appropriate resolution.

There is also a great program offered by Apple, called QuickTime 7 Pro, that allows you to use home videos and videos that are not professionally made and convert them to play on your iPod, just like an iPod movie that you can download. This is a great way to personalize your iPod video, or send a home movie to a friend or family member.

The process is simple: start by downloading the QuickTime 7 Pro from the Apple website. If you have a Mac computer, simply upload your movie to your computer and click on the title of the movie in the drop down box found on the QuickTime program menu. If you have a PC, upload the movie from the device as per the manuals and then save it in the QuickTime file. Once the movie is selected you will again need to use the drop down box and select the export feature, then click on Movie to iPod and let the computer do the rest.

A scrolling bar will keep you informed of the transfer process and will allow you to see how much more time is required for the transfer to occur. You will then need to synch the iPod with the computer to play the movie the first time, then it will be stored on both your computer and the iPod for future use.

The vast number of iPod movies and the ease of using the conversion software means that more people, even those that are not experts on the computer, can easily keep their favorite movies as well as their favorite songs close at hand on their iPod.